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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25210672">a lot to unlearn</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account'>orphan_account</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Academy Era, Child Neglect, Childhood, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotionally Repressed, Emotions, Family, Growing Up, Happy Ending, Hurt Jim, I hope?, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, James T. Kirk Has Issues, M/M, Oblivious James T. Kirk, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Protective Leonard "Bones" McCoy, Rating May Change, Tarsus IV, and everyone else's feelings, but bad, the pairing will probably be subtle, to his feelings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 11:13:51</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>839</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25210672</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“Jimmy,” she says, and her voice cracks. She’s probably tired. Her hands twitch, she wants to touch him, but she doesn’t reach out, has never been able to. They spasm at her side until she lifts one to run through her own hair.<br/>“Jimmy, you need to learn to let your heart bend, not break.” </p><p> </p><p>Jim hasn't had much advice from his mother, so when he gets it he takes it as seriously as he can. Builds a life around it until protecting his heart is all he knows how to do, no matter how much it aches.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>James T. Kirk &amp; Leonard "Bones" McCoy, James T. Kirk/Leonard "Bones" McCoy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>24</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>a lot to unlearn</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>tw: child neglect (probably pretty mild, but to be safe)</p><p>Hope you enjoy!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Sam sits in the corner of his room, balanced precariously on the windowsill. The curtains are thrown open; when he curls his toes over the edge he can push his torso far enough out to twist his neck and count the stars. Wind echoes through the gap, ruffling his hair, but the night is warm so he doesn’t mind. It’s a good sitting place. There’s plenty of places you can watch the sky from, but not many of them are his. Maybe it isn’t relaxing, but the danger, the feeling that there’s nothing but his own balance keeping him from tipping out the window, grows warm and comfortable in his chest. He sits there often, imagining what his mum must see, flying about in her spaceship - wonders if the view is better out there where the stars aren’t clouded by lights and smoke and tears. There’s no wind in space. Mum hasn’t been back in months, pushing a year, but he doesn’t reckon that she’s ever cried about having to stay away.</p><p>When she’s away everything is quieter. Frank is around, mostly, but he doesn’t care enough to talk to them - he’s never outright hurt them, but his quiet contempt and the rippling silence is more than enough to drive them both away, even if the only place they can go is up the stairs. (It occurs to him, much later, that when Frank sees them all he can see is their father, this dead man that his wife will always love more than him. Sam can’t ever forgive him their childhood, but he thinks he might understand.) The relationship between Sam and Jim isn’t tense so much as non-existent, a carefully cultivated distance preventing them from ever being siblings in more than blood.</p><p>It’s hard, sometimes, not to look at Jim and see his dad; his father’s eyes in the face of this creature that came home instead. Often it’s too hard to look at him at all.</p><p>Sam hears him, sometimes, crying in his room. This should be something they bond over, he knows. A shared experience, asking for help and not being heard. A shared longing for their mother, for normality, and a mutual fear that she won’t be back this time. Sometimes he wants to reach out, to talk to him, tell him all the little reassurances he repeats to himself (it’s okay, Jimmy, don’t cry, she’ll be okay, this isn’t like dad, this can’t be like dad). It’s too easy to convince himself that he’s young - just a cry-baby, his younger brother, it’s not like it’s Sam’s job to care for him. This is enough, mostly, even though he knows that it’s Frank’s job to look after them when Winona is away, even when he knows that he never will. It’s got to be enough because how can he take care of his brother, how can he even look at him, when all he sees is a reminder that he’s stuck with Frank, that mum is running away from them, that their dad is dead?</p><p>He runs his fingers up the window frame, idly. The battered wood, a relic now in a world where everything is sleek metal and plastic, feels sharp and brittle under his fingers. If he presses down he can feel the little needles against the pads, close his eyes and imagine drawing blood. He knows that out here, where they live in the middle of nowhere, most of the stuff is old. That’s something his mum hates about this place, maybe. Everything is too old and full of memories.</p><p>A muffled sob rings out from the room next to him and Sam starts, uncurling for a second to stare at the wall. He wants to reach out, but he needs to be safe, he needs to not think of his dad. Jim looks like him, he’s got the wrong eyes and hair and everything. Sam needs to be safe, and Jim doesn’t need him anyway. He’s used to being on his own. His dad was so strong, so Jim must be strong too, it has to be in the genes or something. Jim must be strong enough to cope without Sam, his big brother, without anyone. With dad’s face he has to live well, even if it’s on his own.</p><p>So he resumes his defensive position, curls his toes over the open space below his window, looks up at the stars, and imagines his mother. Ignores tearful hiccupping in the room across from him, echoing in the silence that riddles the house whenever she is away. Ignores the ideas of duty, of family, and eyes that make him sick.</p><p>(It is strange, the logic people can find when they’re grieving. Justifying simple things, like the abandonment of a brother you never really knew, is surprisingly easy. Sam doesn’t know, hasn’t thought about it yet; there is something so uniquely terrible about having the face of a dead man, even one you never met, even one you are supposed to love.)</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>So this is kind of a short prologue for the actual story, which I'll upload in (hopefully) two chunks, which will be much longer. Please let me know if you enjoyed it!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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